Work Text:
[Click.]
ARCHIVIST
Statement of Lilith Foley, regarding the thing that replaced her mother. Statement received via letter September 13th, 1914. Audio recording by the Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London.
Statement begins.
ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT)
Hello Archivist. I had heard of your place of stories from a traveller, who offered to bring this letter to you. I do not expect any action to come of this, but the thought that someone might listen and believe my story is relieving enough. I doubt anybody where I am would, as even my own family who saw it with their own eyes refuse to believe me.
I live in a little town called Community. I always have, and I will do so until I serve my purpose. That is how things are here. We live, work, marry, have children, raise them, then serve our purpose. That is the Community way. Frankly, I shouldn't have even been speaking to the traveller. Leaving isn't allowed, and I'm lucky they didn't mistake my speaking to the traveller as a desire to leave. I'm incredibly happy here in Community.
My mother was the voice of the Elders. Nobody ever saw them, but they watched over our village from their house on the hill. It is thanks to them that Community is so peaceful, see, and so we tend the lands in their name. Mother was always a proponent of this. She knew what pleased them, what they required from us, everything. She wasn't the first vassal, that was one of our ancestors, but she was very good at her job.
I remember her well, considering I was only five years old when she changed.
One day, after she left to bring some products of ours to a nearby place – I was never allowed to know where exactly, other than it was the home of a friend of the Elders – she came home, but she came back wrong.
She smiled at me, but it wasn't Mother's smile. It was something different, almost predatory. Not human. Physically it looked about the same, but I knew. I think my brothers knew as well, as did my father, but none of us dared say anything. We didn't know what it would do to us if we dared reveal the presence of the imposter, so we stayed quiet.
It looked almost like a doll, an imitation of humanity woven from soft wool and built from polished wood, perfect in a way most people could never hope to achieve. It looked exactly like Mother did, except more beautiful in some kind of unreachable way. It settled into my mother's life quite easily. I think it had been watching her for a long time. It called itself Maria Foley, it walked like her and spoke like her, and was almost as in tune with the Elders' desires. It was like it was the same person my mother had been, simply shifted slightly to the left.
It was no secret that Mother and Father didn't truly love each other. They married because of tradition. We marry and have children regardless of love, that's the Elders' will. Most couples grow to love one another regardless, but not Mother and Father. They didn't dislike each other by any means, but raising us was a job they did together, rather than a privilege born of romance.
That was until the thing pretending to be my mother arrived.
Something about the ways she'd changed, softer in some respects and sharper in others, was enough to lure Father in. He grew to love that thing, more than he'd ever loved Mother.
It wasn't a surprise when, soon, the Thing that wasn't my mother was with child. It grew softer still, more motherly, and I played along because there was nothing else to do.
When Tobias was born, I knew he wasn't quite human. More human than the Thing that gave birth to him, sure, but there was something inherently off about him too. The little cuckoo bird he was, he was where Father directed almost all of his attention, at least in my eyes.
Maybe that was simply my bitterness from being young. I imagine I felt similarly towards Stevenson, who was born between me and Tobias, at some point. But when Tobias was the son of something wrong, something pretending to be what it wasn't, it wasn't hard to feel upset by his presence at first.
Not wanting to displease the Thing, though, I carried on. I kept my mouth shut, and treated Tobias the same as I had treated my other brothers.
Even with his wide eyes, his odd fascination with bugs, or his sometimes vacant smile, he was ultimately my brother still. I don't think I was wrong for growing to love my brother, even if he was born a monster. He didn't choose that, and he's done us no evil. He’s just Tobias. Hardworking, clever, and curious, that’s how I would describe him. He’s not evil, not the way his mother is.
The Thing adored him. He was its favourite, and everyone could tell. I don't blame it for having a favourite, though. That was its son. I didn't mind not being its favourite, either. As much as I had missed my Father's attention, I liked being able to avoid the Thing.
But avoiding it was impossible when it had such an important position within Community as a whole, and not just our household. Soon, the Thing pushed us all to undertake further strange behaviours in the name of the Elders.
Waking in the night rather than the day became our routine. It didn't matter that it was hard to see through the darkness – the lantern light was enough, according to it. We adjusted.
Raw meat became a regular part of our diets. Not a lot, as we gave most of it to the Elders, but a small piece every day. I could tell Tobias enjoyed it more than the rest of us, or at least part of him deep down did. We adjusted to that as well.
That's how I knew why it had chosen my family to infiltrate. It wanted my mother's sway, her influence over the people of Community. It wanted to show us a different light, and needed my mother's voice so that we would trust her. It needed to speak through someone we all looked to for guidance, and who better than my mother?
And then one day, a few years ago, it vanished.
People said it simply left one day. Nobody stopped it. She was the Elders' vassal, after all. If she left, it was likely on their orders, and she'd be returning soon… except she never returned. It was gone, and I was free. My family was finally free of the monster in our walls.
Father mourned it. He hardly worked after that, he was so disturbed by her disappearance. I tried to comfort him and assure him that all would be well, I really did, but he would not listen.
I tried to celebrate quietly with my brothers that the monster was gone, but they continued to deny that there had ever been one. I could see in their eyes that they remembered, that they believed me, but with their voices they told me that everything had been fine, and that if I told the rest of Community that they'd think I was mad. I agreed with that last part.
We're doing alright now, though. Father never quite recovered, but he's fulfilled his purpose. Whatever that was, he's done now, and he can finally be happy again. Maybe he'll even find the Thing he loved again now that he's gone off to a better place.
I don't know what it was trying to do with Community, why it wanted us to change, why it chose to have Tobias. Why it played pretend for so long, what it stood to gain from such a long lie. All I know is that it scared me, and it scared my brothers, and they're too scared of it to speak about the truth. I'm too scared of my own Community to speak the truth.
Thank you for reading my story. I may not know you, but I hope that you'll believe me. It'd be nice to know that I am believed, even if it is by someone I will never meet.
Sincerely, Lilith Foley.
ARCHIVIST
Statement ends.
The first thing to note when considering the legitimacy of this statement is that Miss Foley was likely part of a cult. This is supported by the second letter attached to the first, which reads as follows:
"Dear Archivist. I apologize for Miss Foley's lack of tact in her letter. I even had to instruct her on how to close it. She had never written one before, as her community generally does not have contact with the outside world.
I believe Community is likely to be a form of cult, dedicated to worshipping whatever their Elders are. I don't believe them to be human, from the way Lilith spoke of them. She revered them with her whole being, and the thought of leaving against their will revolted her.
Whatever belief they have, I know it is important that her story is heard. If not because of the creature she encountered, then to make Community known. I don't plan to return. It scares me far too much for that. Something about this place is deeply wrong."
While the judgement of the one who delivered these letters may not be perfect, as the "Elders" are obviously humans who have put themselves in a position of power, if an outsider who saw Community first hand believed it to be a cult, I am inclined to believe them.
As Miss Foley was a cult member, her story is immediately less credible. Perhaps her mother changed as a person because she had started to learn what it was like outside of the cult, and escaped later on to start a new life.
Alternatively, Lilith herself may have simply had Capgras syndrome, the delusion that someone close to you has been replaced by an identical imposter. While she didn't discuss any head injury, or symptoms of other conditions that may be a risk factor for developing Capgras syndrome, such as schizophrenia, it would be an incredibly plausible explanation for her beliefs about her mother. Such symptoms likely wouldn’t be relevant in such a letter.
Regardless, any further attempts to investigate this statement would likely go nowhere. We were not informed of the location of Community, and it's rather unlikely that a cult in the middle of nowhere would have kept any records of their population in the early 1900s, let alone anything of use to us in this matter. It will simply have to be left here.
Recording ends.
[Click.]